Chapter where Rory and Charlotte travel to see a college.

Rory and Charlotte are on a train. They are going to New York for the day, to tour NYU and walk around the city afterwards. The original plan was to drive but Rory has had to take her car to the garage and Jess is away for a conference. The train sways gently and Charlotte looks out at the window, enjoying the scenery passing by. She's not disappointed by the change in plan. A glance back shows that her mother has got her book out but it floats gently back into her lap as Rory's gaze goes to the window, her mind elsewhere. Charlotte watches her for a moment until her mother catches her eye and, embarrassed, Charlotte smiles and checks her phone. It feels strange to going to New York and not hit all the usual spots this time. They won't have time to see it all after the tour. Logan's out of town so they can't see him either, but Charlotte isn't very sorry about that. She wonders if he'll want to see her more if she moves there, if she'll even want to. Maybe he won't care either way. Charlotte doesn't want to think about that and distracts herself with a game until her mother lets out a yawn.

"Is it coffee time yet?" Rory asks and laughs as Charlotte says, "It's always coffee time, Mom."

"Agreed."

Rory gets out a thermos and pours out two cups, five times as stronger than what's being sold on the train. Charlotte takes an appreciative sip and then another as she thinks over the coming week. She has to finish a few more applications, help her dad in Truncheon and hopefully hang out with Ivy too, and her boyfriend, Alec. Charlotte can already imagine how their date will go, a rehash of all their latest conversation, and feels tired at the thought. It must show on her face as Rory asks, "What's up?"

"What?"

"You look worried about something."

Charlotte shrugs. "Just college stuff."

"Okay," Rory says. Mother and daughter drink more coffee and lapse back into silence. Charlotte stares back out of the window, thinking. What's wrong with her? She should want to see Alec. He's her boyfriend and they've been together since almost the start of senior year. It's spring now. They have the best time together - Charlotte loves being with him, spending the day in town. Onetime they even went to New York. She loves just hanging out with him, doing nothing and goofing around. The sex is good too, way better than the times with Tyler - not that it's much comparison - and it's never awkward or, if it is, only in a funny way. Charlotte has so much fun with him. She knew she wanted to be with him ever since their first date at a coffee shop where they couldn't stop talking about movies and the new show no one is watching but should and the dorky music they both love. Right before they left, Charlotte laughed so hard she knocked her coffee over her shirt and was so embarrassed Alec spilt some too to make her feel better. He always makes her smile. So what's wrong with her- why has everything with him just felt the same lately? What's going to happen when they go to college?

Rory settles back into her book and Charlotte picks up her phone. She scrolls a little but can't concentrate and it seems Rory feels the same as she puts the book on the table between them.

"I can't believe we're going to see a college. I can't believe you're going to college!"

"Is this going to be a Rory Gilmore sentimental speech?"

"One of my finest. I swear it was just the other day you were starting high school - forget that, more that you were starting elementary school. Or being a baby, even, and Richie and Annie weren't born yet."

"Original and best," Charlotte teases but her mom looks a little bright around the eyes as she laughs.

"You were my first baby and now you're getting ready for college. It doesn't feel that long ago since I went to college, since the day I went to look at Yale with Mom and Grandma and Grandpa. That was a crazy day."

"What happened?"

"Oh, Grandpa told me he was just going there for some nostalgia trip - he was part of this singing group called the Whiffenpoofs."

Charlotte and Rory giggle a little until Rory remarks, "He took it very seriously. Anyway, he wanted me and Mom to go with him and Mom was totally against it. She didn't want me to go to Yale - we had this whole plan that I'd go to Harvard and break away from the Yale tradition - but I convinced her it was just for Grandpa's trip down memory lane. And the day was actually really fun, at first, even after Grandma insisted on bringing an umbrella, raincap and a change of clothes. Grandpa showed me his favourite places on campus and where he proposed to Grandma and told me a really cute story about how Mom stole his Yale diploma when she was a kid. And then we were walking through the great hall and the next thing I knew, I was being whisked into the admissions office for an interview."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"Was Nana mad?"

"Understatement of the century."

"Were you?"

"I was more mad that Grandpa lied to me. If he'd really wanted me to go, I'd have interviewed just to make him happy. I hate being blindsided by things and I especially hated not being prepared back then. I was wearing jeans, my hair was unbrushed and I told the Dean Gloria Estefan was my role model - I felt so stupid and unprepared."

"But you went there in the end," Charlotte points out and Rory nods thoughtfully.

"I guess his plan worked in a way. Even now it kind of rankles - I wish he'd just asked me. Not Richard Gilmore's style, I guess. I still wonder what would have happened if I'd gone to Harvard instead."

Charlotte waits for a moment and, as her mother still looks lost in thought, prompts, "So what happened after the interview?"

"Right," Rory says, shaking herself. "There's not too much else to tell. Mom and I took a cab home and the cold war between her and the grandparents went arctic. Although it felt pretty heated when she and Grandpa were fighting."

Charlotte laughs and then suddenly her mother is giggling, going slightly red as her daughter asks, "What?"

"Oh, I was just remembering...after we got back we went to the diner and your dad and I snuck off to see each other. We told Mom and Luke some excuse and met at the gas station. Your dad said he was glad he didn't smoke his cigarette...it depended on what we did next."

Her mother is actually blushing at the memory! Charlotte is half-amused, half-nauseated as she asks, "Do I want to hear this?"

"Charlotte! Not that! We had our first kiss - our first real kiss, I mean. I kissed Jess at the wedding but it was an impulse thing. That was our first kiss as a couple."

Judging by her mother's grin it was good, but Charlotte is going to ask for any detail. She smiles a little at her mother's happy expression and thinks back to her first real kiss with Alec, how perfect it was and how she'd felt weak at the knees. She feels completely composed when they kiss now and Charlotte feels herself sombre. Rory catches her eye.

"What's bothering you?"

"I don't like Alec like I did," Charlotte says quietly. "I'm scared he'll tell me he loves me...I don't love him, Mom."

As she says it out loud Charlotte knows it's true and a big teardrop spills down and lands on the table. Rory reaches her hand out to her daughter and says, "Angel. It's okay."

"It's not okay," Charlotte sobs. "Alec was great to me - he is great. I don't want to hurt him. He's so sweet and funny and we have such a good time together. I shouldn't feel differently about him."

"But you can't help your feelings changing."

"I don't want them to change! We were happy!"

"I know," Rory says gently. "Your dad and I really like him too. But Charlotte, you're only eighteen. You're both about to leave high school - you're so young."

"It's not fair," Charlotte sniffles. "If I've met someone great that should be it, and Alec is great, he's so much better than Tyler ever was, I mean..." Her voice trails off, not wanting to elaborate, even though it's not really secret. Charlotte told Rory when she was thinking about sleeping with Alec and her mother put her on the pill. They haven't talked anymore about it but onetime, when her parents were out of town with Annie and Richie, Alec stayed over. Charlotte never told her parents and they never asked, but before Rory and Jess left they both told her to be careful. Rory nods, not asking for details, and simply says again, "You're only eighteen. Charlotte, even when you're an adult you can't predict staying with someone forever. It doesn't work like that."

"I want to love him."

"I know, sweets. But there's a difference between actually loving someone and wanting to, trust me. And I've been in relationships, and I always hung on longer than I should have, because I wanted things to be better than they were. I had an idea of love for a long time, that it always lasts, that you hold on. But people change, Charlotte. Love changes."

Charlotte looks away and Rory says gently, "I didn't want to hurt the guys I was with but I hurt them more by pretending things hadn't changed and I hurt myself too. I had my first time with my first boyfriend because I thought we could go back to how things were, but it didn't work out - we were older and our lives had changed, not to mention him being married. It wasn't romantic, it wasn't right, it was just us trying to get something back that was gone. I was scared that if I broke up with Dean that would be admitting it was a mistake - which it was."

"When did you feel okay about dating again?"

Rory sighs before saying, "I probably jumped into other stuff too soon - I should have had some time to myself, but I was scared. I was just feeling miserable and then I met Logan and he was so exciting...after Dean I felt cynical for a long time and decided I didn't want a relationship. I was so hurt when when Dean broke up with me I was done. It felt like loving anyone was too hard. Jess leaving was what hurt me the most though - I felt abandoned. That felt worse than anything I went through with my other boyfriends."

"How were you able to forgive him?"

"Time," Rory says simply. "A lot of time, and growing up. We were both so young - it hurt me very badly but your dad was figuring things out too. We both had a habit of running out on things. I thought that by staying with people, I wasn't hurting them, but it's more complicated than that. I didn't manage to break up with anyone until Logan, and that was long overdue."

"How did you do it?" Charlotte asks, looking up. "How did you know it was time?"

Rory pauses, thinking, and says, "I just knew. I know that's a weak answer. We'd had this crazy night but we weren't kids anymore, we weren't in college. We'd been doing...whatever it was we were doing for too long already. I knew someone had to be the grown-up and end it. And I remember waking up and Logan was asleep and I got out of bed and sat by the window. It was a beautiful morning, just like it is now, and I knew. I still loved him but not in the same way. I was moving on. And it was hard but I did it, and then there was you."

Charlotte feels a little awkward, thinking about that, but her mother is smiling at her.

"I always wanted you to know you don't have to stay," she says, her blue eyes fixed on Charlotte's. "Don't be scared to fall in love, but don't be scared to end it, when it's time. And don't be scared to fall in love again."

"But I am scared," Charlotte blurts out. "I'm scared of everything, Mom! I'm scared to leave home, I'm scared to go to college and I'm scared of breaking up with Alec. I don't want things to change!"

"But they have to change," Rory says, firmly but gently. "Life changes, angel. It's messy...you can't pin it down with a pro/con list."

"I want things to go back to how they were," Charlotte says and then she's crying properly, sobbing noisily and scrabbling for a napkin. Her mother hands a couple to her and, squeezing her hand, says, "They can't stay the same. But new things are going to happen for you."

Charlotte can't stop crying and Rory gets up to sit next her. Charlotte lets Rory put her arm around her and hug her tightly before she says in a wobbly voice, "Things worked out for you and Dad in the end. He left but then you got back together and now you're my mom and dad."

"Charlotte, that's different," Rory says carefully.

"Why? Why is it different?"

"Because we spent years apart - we grew up. We weren't together all that time."

"Do you think that could happen for me and Alec?" Charlotte asks in a small voice and Rory says, "Maybe," but her voice is doubtful. Charlotte sniffles into silence.

"I wish I loved him," she says quietly. Rory kisses the top of her head.

"I know."

"Mom...when I broke up with Tyler I felt like I was going to die," Charlotte says, before she loses her nerve. "And he was such a jerk in the end. Alec's not a jerk - he's so wonderful - and now I have to break up with him. How am I going to get through it?"

"It's going to be horrible," Rory says honestly. "It's going to suck, and you'll feel like the worst person on the planet."

"Gee, thanks."

"But you'll get through it. Some time'll pass and you'll wake up one morning and not feel quite so crappy, and you'll know you did the right thing. And someday you'll want to love someone else. And you'll get all those fun, silly feelings when you meet someone for the first time and fall in love all over again."

"That doesn't seem possible."

"It is, I promise. Life is always changing on you. Right now you're going to college - that's a change too."

"I'm scared of stuff changing...I don't want to do it all alone."

"You're not. You've got me and Dad and your nana and your friends. And you'll make new friends."

"It's not the same."

"I know. But it's an adventure, too - you're doing something brand new on your own. Isn't that exciting?"

"What if I hate it?"

Rory is quiet for a moment and then admits, "I hated my freshman year. I never told anyone that. I've said it was hard, that I was kind of lonely, but really, I hated it."

"You did?"

"Not every second - some of it was fun. But I was totally out of my comfort zone and I missed Mom, I missed her so much, and I just felt like I was messing everything up and I was so alone. It was miserable. I had to have Mom spend the first night with me because I was so scared, and it didn't even get much better after that, and not just because I shared with Paris."

Charlotte leans closer to her mother as she says, "I won't promise you that you'll love it. I thought that if I told people I didn't love my freshman year that I'd failed."

"So...I will hate it?"

"You might, but you might not. You'll probably hate some of it and love some of it. But Charlotte, your dad and I are only a phonecall away and we can come visit all the time."

"All the time?"

"Well, maybe not every weekend," Rory amends. "But we'll visit a lot. I'm going to miss you."

"Me too," Charlotte says, wiping her eyes. She thinks back to that year when she dated Tyler, how she found every second with her parents an annoyance. It feels like a distant memory now. Even if Logan doesn't want to see her more, Charlotte knows her real parents do, and she feels a little better.

"You'll be okay," Rory says firmly, turning to look Charlotte in the eye. "I swear."

"Really?

"Charlotte, I wish I could promise everything will work out, but I can't," Rory says softly. "Not everything does. But some things will, and I know that you're going to come out an even more amazing you."

"What if I don't?"

"I know you will. I promise it's going to be okay. You're my girl, and you're a Gilmore girl. We're tough."

"We are," Charlotte says and then she's laughing. "I want to be."

"No, you are! You've got Lorelai for your grandmother and me for your mom. Our eyes and hair aren't the only things you got from us. You're as strong as we are."

"It's all the caffeine," Charlotte jokes but she leans into Rory's arms, watching the world from their window. She'll be okay, she thinks. She'll make it through. She's a Gilmore.